The 1975 data include 1,146 American families with a child age 3-17 at home. The 1985 survey includes 3,235 families with children from infancy through age 17. Interviews in both surveys were conducted with the father in a random half of the families and with the mother in the other half of the families. Child abuse was measured using the Conflict Tactics Scales. The two surveys covered many aspects of family patterns and life circumstances. One factor in child abuse is in the structure of the contemporary American family, e.g., the practice of placing the major burden of child care on mothers. The economic and psychological stress stemming from poverty and an unstable economic system is also related to child abuse, as is isolation from the help and social control of a larger network of kin and community. Short-term residents of a neighborhood, for example, have a higher incidence of child abuse when compared to long-term residents. Unintended but powerful training in the use of violence as a means of teaching and resolving conflicts also contributes to child abuse. Although psychotherapy may be appropriate in some cases, a more fundamental approach to child abuse lies in the equal sharing of child care between mother and father, replacement of physical punishment with nonviolent methods of child care and training, reduction in the stresses and insecurity which characterize the economic system for many families, and strengthening the ties of individual families to the extended family and the community. 3 tables, 1 figure, 3 footnotes, 17 references.